The Department of Homeland Security said Friday it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month. The order applies to about 532,000 people from the four countries who came to the United States since October 2022, arriving with financial sponsors and given two-year permits to live and work in the US. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they'll lose their legal status on April 24, or 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register, per the AP.
The new policy impacts people already in the US and who came under the humanitarian parole program. It follows an earlier Trump administration decision to end what it called the "broad abuse" of the humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there's war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the US. DHS said parolees without a lawful basis to stay in the US "must depart" before their parole termination date. "Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status," DHS said.
Before the new order, beneficiaries of the program could stay in the US until their parole expired, although the administration had stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas, and other requests that might allow them to remain longer. The Biden administration allowed up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries to come to the United States for two years with eligibility to work. Since late 2022, more than half a million people have come to the US under the policy, also known as CHNV. It was a part of the Biden administration's approach to encourage people to come through new legal channels while cracking down on those who crossed the border illegally.
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The Trump administration's decision has already been challenged in federal courts. A group of American citizens and immigrants sued it for ending humanitarian parole and are seeking to reinstate the programs for the four nationalities. Lawyers and activists raised their voices to denounce the government's decision. Friday's action is "going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country," said Karen Tumlin, founder of Justice Action Center, one of the organizations that filed the February lawsuit. She called it "reckless, cruel, and counterproductive."
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